Appeal No. 2006-3352
Application No. 09/682,520
responsive to an evaluation of true, pushing a unique identifier into a predefined
area of storage, wherein said unique identifier is associated with the instructions
executed as a result of said evaluation of true.
Although a claim is read in the context of the supporting specification, during
prosecution the claim terms are given the broadest reasonable interpretation, as
indicated in the above cited cases, and are to not be unduly limited by either the
specification or the appellant’s arguments in interpreting the terms of the claim under
examination.
In the Examiner’s Answer, Examiner indicates his reading on the anticipatory
reference Wisor, as follows:
-a method for tracing the execution path of a computer program
comprising at least one module including a plurality of instructions (“to
enable the user to trace the sequence of execution of instructions…”
[Wisor] col. 3 lines 1-2).
- at least one of said instructions being a branch instruction, (“The stored
data identifies whether or not certain branches in the test program were
taken…” [Wisor] col. 4 lines 58-59).
- identifying each branch instruction; (“involves detecting the branch
instructions…”[Wisor] col. 6 lines 16-17)
- evaluating each branch instruction to be one of true and false, and
responsive to an evaluation of true, pushing a unique identifier into a
predefined area of storage, wherein said unique identifier is associated
with the instructions executed as a result of said evaluation of true.
(“…When a test program is executed, a trace record is generated and
stored in the BTHB (branch trace history buffer) …the bitmap entries are
generated for a series of conditional branches and contain individual bits
which represent the taken or not-taken status of the branches.” [Wisor]
col. 3 lines 11-21) [Answer, page 4]
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